With full understanding of who I once was; dead in sin, lost and without hope; and who I am now; forgiven, redeemed, reconciled, transformed and adopted; ONLY by God's grace and great love, it is much easier to patiently hope, and pray, for the restoration of others. Lost people act like lost people, as I once did. Jesus loved me anyway (Romans 5:8), and commands us to love them likewise.
And the darker the world, the brighter we are to shine.
John Bonar “The Nature of a Religious Revival” in The Revival of Religion. Addresses by Scottish Evangelical Leaders Delivered in Glasgow in 1840
Where Satan holds his seat most firmly there is most need for the power of Jehovah to be revealed. Where darkness is most visible, there it is most desirable to penetrate with the light of life.
(That light sometimes exposes sin.)
